My Story
Charlotte Zang’s lifelong fascination with storytelling began in childhood, with her mother reading her tales spun by Ray Bradbury, Hans Christian Andersen, Roald Dahl, and Madeleine L’Engle. These stories—woven from folklore, fairytales, and wonders—left their mark, instilling an early love for dark and whimsical worlds in her. Charlotte muses, "Those early myths and fables have always found their way into my writing."
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Through her teens, Charlotte devoured works by Terry Pratchett, Christopher Moore, and Jasper Fforde, whose wit and humor taught her the art of sarcasm and how humor could sharpen the edges of darker tales. This blend of humor with shadowed folklore became her signature: stories that provide an escape from the ordinary yet linger with a touch of darkness.
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Charlotte’s first serious venture into writing came with Emily Bandefut, a story about a strange, solitary girl who would rather read in a dusty window than engage with the ordinary world. “She was a bit of a reflection of myself,” Charlotte admits. “If left to my own devices, I would’ve been Emily, lost in a world all my own.”
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Her debut novel, Satan’s In Your Kitchen, blends the supernatural with humor to set the tone for her future work. She followed this with Consuming Beauty, a personal exploration of fairy tales’ darker side, which was later adapted into a short film by Gantry Productions. Her third book, Blooding, dives into one of her favorite horror tropes: the cult, with themes of witchcraft, secret societies, and monstrous forces. Most recently, Charlotte and her co-writer and husband, author Alex J. Knudsen, published Lost Grove: Part One and The Orbriallis Institute, Lost Grove: Part Two, critically acclaimed novels set in the imaginary town of Lost Grove, inspired by the misty charm of Ferndale, California.
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Driven by a desire to give readers the same escape and solace that stories offered her as a child, Charlotte writes to pull others into these fantastical worlds. “Stories have a unique power," she reflects. "In dark times, they’re an escape, a doorway, and sometimes a lifeline.”
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Charlotte was born in Annapolis, MD, raised in the heartland of the Midwest, and now resides in the misty forests of the Pacific Northwest, where folklore seems to live and breathe. She shares her home with three loyal hounds, an impartial cat, and her partner—a vampire by night (or so she’s heard). When not writing, she’s tending to her herb garden, experimenting with recipes that taste as magical as they sound, and collecting journals she may someday fill.
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